Protestors In Gaza Hurl Eggs, Shows, At Visiting French FM

Saturday January 22, 2011 11:36 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

After the French Foreign Minister, Michelle Alliot-Marie, arrived in Gaza two days ago, a number of protesters hurled eggs and their shoes at her vehicle in protest to her statements regarding the captured prisoner-of-war, Gilad Shalit (in which she failed to mention the 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons). She returned to Egypt on Saturday, January 21.

In Egypt, Marie is expected to hold a meeting with Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, and Foreign Minister, Ahmed Abu Al-Ghait.

The protesters in Gaza took off to the street following her statements demanding the release of Shalit, and demanding Hamas to allow her to visit him in the location where he is held (while she never demanded the Israeli occupation government to release the 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners, or to demand to visit them in their prisons and detention camp).

Israel and its allies (like this French FM) were never able to pinpoint the location where Shalit is being held since he was kidnapped in mid-2006.

Around twenty persons started pounding at her jeep just outside the Red Cross in
Gaza City where she was visiting, and hurled shoes and eggs at her jeep. Following the incident, Alliot-Marie headed to the French Cultural Center.

Gilad Shalit, who was in active military duty, was captured (in the battlefield) by Palestinian fighters who infiltrated into an Israeli military base, near the Gaza border; two soldiers and two fighters were killed in the attack.

The Israeli occupation government carried out a number of wars against the Gaza Strip under the guise of freeing Shalit, and halting the firing of homemade shells from Gaza into adjacent Israeli areas. None of the military actions carried out by Israel where able to get Tel Aviv closer to Shalit, or even to grant Israel is small idea on his whereabouts.

Several mediators tried to negotiate a prisoner-swap deal, and the resistance also presented a list containing the names of detainees to be released by Israel in exchange for releasing Shalit, but Israel rejected the release of dozens of detainees specifically named by the resistance.

Angry Palestinians mob French minister's convoy during Gaza visit

Angry about comments by French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, including remarks about abducted Israeli occupation soldier, Gilad Shalit, while ignoring 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners in the Israeli occupation government prisons, a crowd of Palestinians mobbed the diplomat’s car convoy with eggs and shoes, as she toured the Gaza Strip on Friday.

By News Wires (text)  

France 24, January 21, 2011

AP -

A crowd of furious Palestinian protesters tried to block the French foreign minister on her way into the Gaza Strip on Friday, jumping on her vehicle, lying on the road and then later trailing her for the duration of her brief visit to Gaza.

Dozens of protesters, relatives of about 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli prisons, surrounded Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie’s convoy and tried to block her passage through the Erez Crossing from Israel.

They were angry about comments made by Alliot-Marie the day before in support of Gilad Schalit, an Israeli soldier captured in a cross-border raid by Hamas freedom fighters and held in Gaza since 2006. Schalit is an Israeli-French dual national.

Alliot-Marie made no public statement Thursday after meeting with Schalit’s parents in Jerusalem, but the soldier’s father, Noam Schalit, said afterwards that the minister had called on Hamas to allow the Red Cross to visit his son for the first time. He referred to his son’s capture as a “war crime,” a comment that appears to have been attributed by the Palestinians to the French foreign minister.

Palestinian police eventually dispersed the protesters and allowed her through. But more protesters gathered outside a United Nations office in Gaza City that was her first stop in the Palestinian territory, and later followed her to a nearby hospital, pelting her motorcade with eggs and shoes.

Referring to the comments attributed to Alliot-Marie, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the statements reflected a “total bias toward Israel” and ignored the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. “They are the true prisoners of war,” he said.

In keeping with the policy of the European Union, which considers Hamas a "terror organization," Alliot-Marie did not meet with Hamas officials during her half-day visit. (However, she met with the Israeli occupation government officials, the war criminals who killed children in Gaza, in 2009).

French FM egged in Gaza over misquoted Shalit comments

Published today (updated) 21/01/2011 13:51

GAZA CITY (Ma'an/AFP) --

Families of prisoners gathered in protest on Friday, throwing shoes and eggs at the car of French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie as she arrived in Gaza via the Erez crossing in the north.

Carrying signs reading "Get out of Gaza" they stopped her car shortly after it passed through a Hamas checkpoint in the northern town of Beit Hanoun, surrounding it and hammering on the sides with their fists.

The protest was over a statement which was attributed to the French minister when she met with the parents of captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in Jerusalem a day earlier.

At the meeting, father Noam Shalit asked Alliot-Marie to press the European Union to "condemn as a war crime" the detention of his son, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.

However, shortly afterward, Israel's public radio posted a story on its Arabic-language website quoting Alliot-Marie as saying the European Union "must condemn the war crime that Hamas is committing by keeping Gilad Shalit in captivity."

As the demonstrators shoved toward the car, two children, terrified and crying, were flung to the ground floor in front of the wheels of the lead vehicle convoy of white 4x4 jeeps, and stayed there for several minutes before being hauled away by their families.

Nearby, one of the protesters shouted slogans through a loudhailer, angrily denouncing the "war crimes" statement, while another was holding up a large picture of Alliot-Marie with a red cross plastered over her face.

The Arabic service of Israeli public radio and its website are monitored in the Palestinian territories, and the report was quickly picked and republished by other Arabic-language news sites, prompting a sharply-worded response from Gaza's Hamas rulers.

The Israeli soldier was captured in 2006 by militants base in Gaza and has been held by them ever since.

During her visit to Gaza, the French official will visit the French Cultural Center, and has maintained that she will not be meeting with Hamas officials (who were democratically elected in 2006, while she happily met with the Israeli child killers in Jerusalem).

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri reiterating the party's stand on the continued holding of the soldier, said: "Shalit was captured in the battle field while he was killing Palestinian citizens on Gaza borders, while there are more than 8 thousand Palestinian prisoners who were arrested by the occupation from their homes without any guilt.”

Speaking for the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza, Muhammad Al-Brim said the statement which Israel public radio had announced was a "comprehensive encouragement for the Israeli occupation policy.

The PRC issued a statement on the subject, saying "The French Foreign Minister knows very well that Gilad was in a military tank east of Rafah seizing Palestinians and killing them [when he was captured] and we have the total right to defend our nation."

They scolded the minister saying she "seems to have forgotten about all of the Palestinian detainees spending years in Israeli prisons."